Because it sure is surreal sometimes

Pages

Friday, December 20, 2013

Every year, about this time, I get a sinking feeling in the
pit of my stomach. Just hearing the words, “Christmas list” makes my skin crawl.
With four kids to shop for, things can get a little dicey, and by dicey, I mean
brimming with self-inflicted pain. The first hurdle is deciding on our per-kid
budget; this number serves as both a shining beacon and a source of intense
disagreement, not to mention a fair amount of makeup sex.

Once we have the per-kid budget set, we pencil in the budget
of the relatives who prefer to give us money to do the shopping for them. This
assures two things: The children get everything they want, and we get
migraines. The internal conflict results from the double-edged sword nature of
this arrangement. We’re very lucky to have generous relatives. So what if we do
the shopping for them? Easy, right? After all, they do so much for us, all year
long. At least, that’s what I say every year when they hand me the money. Then,
on December 24, at around second-bottle o’clock, I change my tune. That’s the
time when we pull out our tattered list of gifts and gift-givers, which by now
looks like a Cowboys defense, littered with numbers and arrows and cross-outs,
and begin our final tally of who is getting what from whom. This usually takes
place in our custom-designed wrap room (closet), where I’m sitting on the
floor, in my pajamas, sobbing. Just kidding. I don’t wear pajamas.

“This is the last year I’m going to do this! Why do I agree
to this? Why can’t I just say NO!”

“Because the kids get lots of great stuff that they really
want and doesn’t that feel good?”

“Right. I keep forgetting. But I’m going to need another
glass of wine, STAT.”

So what happens between the time well-intentioned relatives
hand me the money and my Xmess Eve meltdown? A number of things, starting with the
timing of the envelope hand-off. If I receive it too soon in advance of the
hellidays, I haven’t had any time to get really stressed out, which means I
can’t be trusted to make any decisions, about anything. For example, here’s how
it goes down on December 1:

Anonymous relative #1: “I’ve got the kids’ money for you.”

Me: “Cool.”

Here’s how it goes down on December 24, in my closet, I
mean, custom wrap room:

Me: “F-word!” Hiccup.

Husband: “There, there. It’s going to be fine. Pass me your
glass.”

The other thing that throws a monkey wrench into the
theoretically perfect plan for child satisfaction is the logistics, which
includes the math. We spend hours upon hours crunching the numbers.

“$20 for that?”

“But it’s 14.8%” I plead, showing my husband the fine print
on the bottle of Zinfandel I’m holding in the wine aisle of the grocery store.
“Please?”

“Fine. Put it in the basket.”

What causes the most stress is making not only the children
happy, but the gift givers. We want them to feel good about the things we are
buying with the money they gave us. Who
gets to give the big ticket item? Why is it never us? Then, we try to match up
the importance of the giver’s gift to each child. After all, we can’t very well
allow aunty to give one of them a new bedspread and another one a flat screen
TV, can we? I don’t care if they cost about the same, that’s not fair to the
kid or aunty! It’s either got to be all business or all fun, from the same
person, for all four. Doesn’t it? And some years, I try to round down the tax,
or suggest we absorb it.

“Why would we do
that?”

“Because they don’t have jobs and shouldn’t have to pay
taxes?”

We all know what happens next: the head tilt, one eyebrow
raised.

Speaking of numbers, I never understand them. This confuses
my husband, which can make for a little tension. I start re-adding the totals
on my original shopping list with the amounts and cross-outs and arithmetic and
by now a little blood and probably some wine. For some reason, I always think
we’ve missed something. Sometimes we have. I usually find that in the back of the
closet in March.

In the final analysis, when the big morning rolls around,
and the kids open their presents, relatives sitting nearby, it’s all worth it. That
is, until this:

Saturday, December 7, 2013

I’m thankful it’s over. Thanksgiving. I’m so bored with
people who are thankful for the stuff that’s easy. It’s easy to sit around and dreamily
think up universal, corny sounding things to be thankful for, like nature’s
bounty or family. Even worse: giving someone else the credit for what you have
(I’m thankful to [insert favorite deity here], for bringing [insert name of special
person] into my life.) Those drive me crazy. Are those same people thanking their
favorite deity for the first spouse he or she brought into their life? The one
they divorced for blowing the rent money every month on strippers? This guy God
gets the credit for the winning moments, but not the crushing defeats? Sorry,
but I’m taking the credit for the wins and
the losses, thank you very much. I’m
thankful that I finally got myself together enough to attract the greatest husband
in history. I did that. Thanks, Me.

But I digress.

I’m sure all of the “I’m thankful-for…” posts that
people throw up (no pun intended) on Facebook are heartfelt, but are they honest and revealing? Are they
representative of how we’re feeling on any given day when we’re in the weeds of
life, amid the confusion, frustration, anger and resentment that knocks on our
mental door when we’re out of beer? Sure, these feelings are fleeting, with a
shelf-life of about two seconds, but that doesn’t make them any less exhausting,
which makes them being lifted from our shoulders something we truly should feel
gratitude for—right there in the moment, when it counts the most.

I had one of these real thankful moments just the
other day, when the kids were all off from school for the holiday. I certainly
was not thankful about that, but I was thankful for open floor plans, so that I
could boss everyone around while working in my home office. As I was pointing
out that I had gone shopping the day before and that there was plenty of soup
in the cupboard and leftover breadsticks, and that they didn’t have to have the
soup, because there was also ham in the fridge and pizza in the garage freezer
and…my husband cut me off! At that moment, I checked myself and acknowledged my
gratitude for having a husband who knows where the kitchen is and isn’t afraid
to use it. Later, when I found out they had crackers and butter for lunch, I
was thankful for duct tape, so I could finish reciting the entire contents of
the cupboards and the fridge to him, without interruption, just like my mom taught
me to do. Thanks, Mom.

Just a little while later, I was thankful that my
husband cracked a beer because his brother told him via text that it’s ok to do
so the day before a major holiday, thereby justifying the Irish I’d snuck into
my coffee earlier that morning. Thanks, interfamilial co-dependency.

I’m thankful for the death penalty, because I’d have
to spend the rest of my life in prison if I acted on impulse and offed one of
my kids. Like, just yesterday, when my 16-year old son grumpily sat down to
write thank-you notes for his birthday presents. Among the hard-hitting questions
he asked me were, “How do you do this?” and “What’s Grandpa’s last name?” So thanks,
penal system.

I am always thankful for solitude. On any given day,
especially when I’m cooking dinner, I am thankful for long sports practices. No
complaining here. Go ahead and keep them through dinner; just make sure practice
starts before I start reading a
recipe. Thanks, coaches.

I’m constantly thanking the unknown force in the
universe that makes working from home a reality. In my pajamas recently, I was
thankful that I could hit the sack during a conference call with my boss and
not have any explaining to do. And that very same day, I was thankful that the co-worker
I was instant messaging couldn’t see me rolling my eyes at her dumb idea. And
almost every day I’m thankful for the ‘microphone mute’ button that allows me
to pee during a company meeting. Thanks, Internet.

No doubt, being thankful is easy when you want to
impress people with mindless gratitude platitudes. But it takes active
participation to notice the truly deserving things you should be thankful for.

Try it today, even though the turkey carcass, not to
be confused with the houseguests, are finally gone: Acknowledge your gratitude for
the little moments of clarity that keep you in the moment and out of prison for
another day.